FIGURATION
Almut Heise, Birgitt Bolsmann, Rissa
Drawings, Works on paper, Painting

On the occasion of Gallery Weekend 2025, we put a focus on the artists Almut Heise, Birgitt Bolsman and Rissa, all three consciously placing representationalism at the centre of their work – thus belonging to the movement that emerged in the early 1960s and which marks a turning away from Abstraction and Art Informel. Drawing as a medium is of particular importance in clarifying their own artistic position.

With precision Almut Heise (*1944), who studied in Hamburg and London, constructs her compositions. Since the mid-1960s, she created an extensive body of drawings and works on paper in colour, concentrating on interiors and portraits, in the beginning preparing paintings, but later on as more autonomous works. Heise does not reproduce reality. Being a sharp observer, she stylised her subjects which seem to be detached from space and time. Every fold, every wallpaper pattern and every gesture is tried out until the »longed-for rooms« have emerged.

Birgitt Bolsmann (1944–2000) already tried her hand at a reality orientated painting while studying in Hamburg. She draws her subjects largely from fashion photography and striking advertising, which she critically examines in terms of the image of women that they propagate. In her painting she fixes her subjects with great clarity using a cool colour scheme. The selection of works on show demonstrates that Bolsman was an outstanding draughtswoman. From 1973 on, she created meticulously executed pencil drawings of portraits and masks as well as fashion and garment studies in dense, visually finely graded grey shades.

Rissa's (*1938) artistic conception is based on the idea of creating a future-orientated, object-related painting both in terms of content and form. Defined at the end of her studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1964, her approach relies on the juxtaposition of small scale structures of form and colour from the outlines of which the pictorial objects emerge. The medium of drawing accompanies Rissa's working process for a canvas painting; nevertheless, there are autonomous work series in which she varies pictorial ideas in a large scale.

Exhibition in Berlin: May 1–June 28, 2025